


Unnecessary "Holidays" Bring the Most Pain

by boppgoestheweasel



Series: the dadschlatt collection [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, DadSchlatt, Father's Day, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know, Implied Child Abandonment, Kid Tubbo, Mild Alcohol Abuse, Quackity n Schlatt are pals, at least a good one, god i love this au, i love them, is this ooc?, no beta we die like men, not canon, not my og au, schlatt knows he can't be a father, tommy n tubbo are best friends, uncle quackity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28376595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boppgoestheweasel/pseuds/boppgoestheweasel
Summary: Father's Day, where Tubbo draws Schlatt as a superhero; equipped with a cape and everything.Schlatt knows he can never be Tubbo's hero. He doesn't deserve to be thought of as such, considering what he was thinking all the years he had Tubbo in his arms.He decides to confide in a friend to make the right decision.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Jschlatt, Alexis | Quackity & Toby Smith | Tubbo, Jschlatt & Toby Smith | Tubbo, No Romantic Relationships - Relationship, No Slash - Relationship, None, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Series: the dadschlatt collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2080011
Comments: 9
Kudos: 360





	Unnecessary "Holidays" Bring the Most Pain

**Author's Note:**

> hello! I thought maybe I should clarify that these characters are all based on the ones portrayed in the SMP, and if any of the CCs mentioned in this story find this and are uncomfortable with it, I'll take it down immediately!!  
> But for now, I hope you have a good read :) this might not even make sense because I wrote it on a whim but I hope it does!

Schlatt was young. Too young, and he knew that. He was never prepared to have a child, it was too much of a commitment. He was still in a headspace where it was cooler to smoke and drink than it was to have a family. He had a will to go to business school, but that was all thrown out the window when his unexpected son was thrust into his arms, left alone to care for the child. 

He wasn’t completely alone though, he knew he had friends, but that didn’t make much of a difference when they weren’t there 24/7. 

That’s why he was dreading Father’s day this year. 

Of course, this was the first year Tubbo was in school, so the last four years or so, he hasn’t had to worry about the whole representation. But when Tubbo started going to school, and bringing to school the foul language he would hear at home, Schlatt knew it was time for something to change. 

He needed to find Tubbo a better home. 

Now, Schlatt wasn’t always bitter about having to care for his son. Sometimes, Schlatt was so proud of him. Like when he started to ride his training bike (still was…), or when Tubbo came home, excited that he could read a small book, excited that he could spell his name. 

_ “Great job, bud!” _

He never feigned his pride for his kid. It was always real.

But for the most part, Schlatt needed to give Tubbo a proper home. He’ll never forget the dread when he yelled “Shit!” upon dropping a beer bottle and his tiny toddler shouted it back. Terrifying. That’s kind of when the contemplation of whether he could take care of a living, breathing child effectively or not started. 

Of course he tried his best! But it was too terribly hard. 

_ “Have a good day at school, bud. I’ll be here to pick you up later, okay?” _

Schlatt hated to admit it, but he would always linger around at the classroom door, watching Tubbo grab a hold of his friend’s arm excitedly, probably enthusing about his newfound “bee friend,” to which the friend whose name was Tommy, Schlatt found out after Tubbo’s first day of daycare awhile back, would respond fervently. 

It always made him smile, how the boys laughed and played. One of those tiny prideful moments. 

When Schlatt picked the boy up from school at the end of the day, he was nervous about the “present” Tubbo mentioned. They probably talked about their fathers at school, what the hell did Tubbo tell the class? What did he say about his deadbeat dad? Did the teacher ever ask about why Tubbo smelt like cigarette smoke? What did he say in response? Schlatt had even turned down “Bring Your Dad to School” day, how terrible was that? 

Tubbo said he couldn’t see the present until they got home, which was fine by Schlatt, he didn’t want to swerve the car. 

During the car ride, Tubbo talked about how much fun he had at school, and what he and Tommy did during the day. 

“We climbed rocks, and played with swords! But then the teacher took them away, so we just played in the sand box instead.”

They arrived home, much to Schlatt’s chagrin. He didn’t deserve any kind of present, he shouldn’t even be considered a dad. 

That didn’t stop him from staring at the little card that was handed to him for way too long. 

“Tubbo-”

There was a shitty poem, one that the teachers always wrote but passed it off as if the kids wrote it themselves. He skimmed the poem anyway, and he’ll admit it warmed his heart a bit. When he opened the card though, that’s where he saw Tubbo’s scribbles. There was a huge pink heart on the left side, and on the right, there he was, holding Tubbo’s hand. He had a cape, and a smug look on his face, like he could conquer the world and thensome. The cape was a thing to focus on, maybe for too long of a minute. It was flowing in the wind it seemed, and there was a big star on it. And above it, scribbled in giant, messy, block letters was “My Hero.” There was nothing in the picture that Schlatt was prepared to see; no beer bottles, no curse words, none of that. Just a beautiful picture of him and his son, a picture of something he was not.

A Hero. 

“Dad, why are you crying?”

Schlatt turned to Tubbo quickly, only just then realizing that tears were cascading down his face in a hurry. 

“Do you not like it?” Tubbo looked like he was gonna cry himself. 

“What? No, bud-” Schlatt sniffed, scooping the boy up in his arms, squeezing him soundly. 

_ I love it a little too much.  _

“Thank you, kid. I… it’s very nice.” 

He saw him as a hero? That’s not how it should be. He should hate Schlatt, he should want to live in a happy family, like Tommy’s, with brothers and a good dad. Not his alcoholic father who sometimes wished he wasn’t there. 

Schlatt cleared his throat, and pulled away from his boy. “You got any homework to do?”

Tubbo nodded.

“Go do it. Who knows, maybe if you keep up your good work, you’ll become a president or something.” Schlatt gave the kid a pat, and remained in his spot when Tubbo ran off to his room. The only bedroom in the house; Schlatt slept on the living room couch on his nights off.

Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe that kid Tommy had a drawing of his dad wearing a cape, and Tubbo mimicked it. Tubbo was a copycat when it came to watching people he cared about. He knew that from experience. He never drank in front of Tubbo because of it. 

But he was sure Tubbo would’ve told him if he got it from someone. He usually did;

_ “Tommy climbed a tree, so I followed him! That’s why there’s blood on my clothes… I fell and got a bloody nose.” _

_ “Tommy showed me how to do a somersault today! I wanted to do it because he looks so cool when he does it.” _

_ “Tommy drew his brothers, so I did too!” _

  * _“Tubbo, you don’t have brothers.”_


  * “Yeah…”



Once Schlatt was a bit tipsy, and responded to one of Tubbo’s rants with “So if Tommy jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?”

The child had looked at him with horror before he started to cry. 

So no, he was sure he hadn’t mimicked someone. 

So he dialed the only number that came to his mind at the moment when he reached his desk in the living room. 

“Hey man,” the voice on the line was relieving to hear.

“Quackity,” Schlatt breathed, “this is going to be harder than I thought.”

“Your plan?” Quackity asked. 

“My plan,” Schlatt confirmed. “As you know, it’s Father’s Day.”

“What the hell happened, J? Do you need me to come over?”

“I just might. Hurry though, we have to talk before I have to read Tubbo to sleep.” 

“Sure man, I’ll be there in a bit,” Quackity muttered. 

They hung up, and Schlatt grabbed a beer from the fridge. He made sure Tubbo was nowhere in sight, but when he heard him reading out his problems from the room down the hall, he took a swig from the cold bottle, the intoxication slipping down his throat. Most fathers would look at the card, say thank you, maybe hug their kid, and then put it on the fridge for a month or so before it disappears. The kid forgets about it, the dad forgets about it, and they move on. But this wasn’t the case, at least with Schlatt. He was sure Tubbo didn’t even remember what he had for breakfast that morning. 

“This is it. This is what he made for me, Alex.” 

Quackity blinked, almost watching the picture, making sure it didn’t hop off the page before he could finish analyzing the scribble drawing. 

“J, this is wonderful. I don’t understand why you’re drinking over this,” Quackity set the card down on the table, too gently.

“No, you don’t understand. My plan… was to give Tubbo away to a better family,” Schlatt muttered the last part, “and now I don’t think it’ll be as easy as I set myself up to think.”

“You knew this wouldn’t be easy anyway, didn’t you?”

Schlatt sat in silence, looking at his friend in agony.

“You thought this was going to be  _ easy?  _ Schlatt, he’s been in your everyday life for four years! Whether you like it or not, keeping the kid this long was bound to get you attached! Well… he’s also literally your child.”

“I know!” Schlatt’s voice was hushed. “I know. I wish I could just keep him.”

“And you can’t?”

“No, of course not! I’m surprised he didn’t draw me with a pill bottle or some shit!” 

“You don’t give yourself enough credit. You’ve managed to be a single parent for all this time, always planning to give him away but you never do. You try to act-”

“Alex.”

“You know I’m right! You care for your little shit whether you like it or not. You just don’t want to make this anymore harder than it already is, so you won’t admit it. You’ve literally never had a drink in front of him, you’ve never popped pills in front of him, or even smoked. You think so, but you haven’t.”

Schlatt set the empty beer bottle next to the card on the table him and Quackity were sitting at. The items representing Schlatt’s two sides. 

“That’s just it, Quackity. I’m  _ not  _ who the kid thinks I am.”

“Uncle Quackity!” 

Tubbo came running into the room, missing the conversation completely, thank god. 

“Hey, Tubbo!” Quackity heaved the boy up, smiling wide and hugging him. “How was school?”

“Fun! We talked about how important fathers were!” 

“Oh yeah?” Quackity shot Schlatt a look. 

“Yeah! I’m doing my homework right now, do you wanna come see?”

“I would love to bud, but your dad and I are having a talk. I’ll come in later, though.” Quackity set the kid back down, and Tubbo nodded before running off to his room again.

“Goddammit.” Schlatt rose to get another beer. 

“You know you  _ could  _ try to keep him, J.” Quackity pressed just a bit.

“If you think it’s so easy, why don’t you take him?” Schlatt popped the metal cap on the counter. 

“Hey, you know that’s not what I was implying. This is clearly weighing on you more than just having him around is.”

“They both have an equal side in my mind. He deserves so much better than me.” 

“It gets easier the more you learn, the more you..” Quackity gave Schlatt a once-over. “.. change.”

But that’s just the thing. Schlatt was not willing to change in order to care for a child. He was more than content living on his own before the kid came. But he would never say that to anyone, not even himself. Because then he would definitely be known as the shit dad that couldn’t even raise his own son in fear of being seen as the bad guy. 

He was already the bad guy, though. No matter what. 

There was a deafening silence that filled the kitchen before Quackity decided to speak once again. 

“It’s all you, man. But while you have him, you better spend as much time with him as possible.” He heard Quackity sniff before he rose from his seat, walking to the small room that catered to the small voice that filled its walls. 

Schlatt heard the excited talking coming from the room when Quackity walked in. He should’ve given the kid to someone before he had time to adjust. Now he couldn’t just leave him in a box somewhere, he had to look him in the eyes and tell him he wouldn’t be able to take care of him anymore. Dinners were scarce, his clothes were starting to wear out, and Schlatt was running out of money. This was the only thing that would work for them. As painful as it was. 

After about an hour, Quackity had come out, announcing that the kid had fallen asleep, and Schlatt was found on the couch, in absolute shambles. Quackity had rushed to sit next to him, to take the maybe fourth or fifth bottle of beer from his shaking hand before placing a hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture, grabbing his attention. 

“Hey man, listen. I know someone who could take him in, that way you wouldn’t have to just give him to some orphanage where he might be mistreated.” 

Schlatt looked up, indicating that he wanted to listen.

“An address-” which was written down on a torn piece of paper with Tubbo’s crayons. “He has a boy of his own. I think it would be good for Tubbo. He wouldn’t be lonely, ever.”

Schlatt nodded, taking the paper in his hands. 

It would sit there in his pocket for the next few months before he made a final decision.


End file.
